How to Sit in a Hoopskirt

Since I posted How to Sit in a Victorian Bustle, I’ve had quite a number of you pipe up that you wanted to see a video on how to sit in a hoopskirt. Well, my dear readers, you’ve asked for it and now it’s here!

It’s not as complicated as you think, so enjoy this video tutorial with tips for how to sit down when wearing a mid-1850s through the late 1860s hoopskirt. (Please share with your friends and fellow reenactors too. 🙂 ).

Sitting in a hoopskirt

See – it’s not hard to sit in a hoop and not have it end up over your head!

Have you had issues sitting in a hoopskirt? End up with the skirts in your face? Knocking over the stool on which you are trying to sit? (yeah… been there…)

Depends on how it’s twisted. Can you push the fabric around the hoop wires to straighten it out? Or perhaps open up a space in each wire casing to remove them then insert them again to make it straight?

This video is great! But I’m struggling with how to play the piano in a hoop skirt … Yes, I can follow your instructions to sit on the bench, but in order to do so I need to pull the bench about 5 feet from the piano, then have no graceful way to get myself close enough to the piano again to actually play.

I’ve heard you can put the hoop entirely over the bench? But then I have the problem of having to lift the hoops so high I flash everyone before my performance even begins. (Maybe that IS the performance?)

I’m thinking having the bench as close as you can get it and still slide in with your skirt. Or have someone (like a gentleman) push the bench closer to you after you stand in front of the keyboard (same as if it were a chair). I’ll have to ask my husband who is a professional keyboardist and knows a bit about dressing in period costume.

Thank you for this video! I am getting married in a few weeks and wearing a fairly large hoop skirt under a big ballgown and I have been trying to figure out how to sit and go to the bathroom in it! Thank you for your help!

I am one of the adults responsible for accompanying the first communion kids at church tomorrow. We have 3 adults. We also have 6, possibly 7 hoop skirted kids. HELP! The part where we have to help them not fall off the steps is relatively straightforward, although difficult (in an ideal world we would have one adult per hoop skirt and one extra adult on either side for the other kids but we neither have the people nor the space for the additional adults), but this video at least helps me help them sit down.

Now I can only hope they fit on the benches (we have never had more than 3 hoop skirts to 4 adults) and that they have fancy hoop skirts like yours and not just the ones with a single hoop at the knees and tulle from the knees down. Or worse, only one at the ankles.

I have been trying to figure out how women removed their cage hoops to ride in a public conveyance, when the practice was to hang them on the back of the carriage, etc. Any ideas how that was done in a demure way?

Nice video. Quite helpful. I wish I had a video to send you. For one re-enactment, I put one of my young sons in a hoop dress. Oh my gosh, you should have seen him. Absolutely anything you could do wrong, he did. Most unladylike. Last time I tried putting him in one of those. I should have had some daughters LOL

I just found this blog and love it. Having sewn for a number of years I learn something new every time I sit down to sew. As for sitting down in a hoop I was lucky enough to have a well verse lady show me. However I was at an event indoors which only had the folding style chairs. I did the back up to said chair, lifted hoop which in turn the next hoop down firmly hooked under the leading lip of chair. I sat back onto a nicely folder chair on the floor. Hoops, petticoats and drawers shown to the world. I learned to just not sit with folding chairs.

I adored this video — thank you so much! I’m currently sewing a mid-Victorian gown to wear for Christmas caroling and I was concerned about how to sit in the hoop skirt. This is one of those times when a picture that MOVES (a video!) is really worth a ten-thousand word explanation!

I am still nervous about the hoop skirt after reading through the comments, though, because I will need to drive myself to various shopping centers, country clubs, nursing homes, wherever my group is booked to sing, already wearing my costume. I bought a 6-ring hoop skirt that has a draw string and I am guessing that I’m probably not going to be able to drive in it, right? I had planned to add a wide elastic waistband to the top of the hoop skirt to make it more comfortable to wear when singing and to make it easier to step in and out of the hoop skirt in parking lots, but one of your readers commented that her elastic waist hoop skirt slid down while she was wearing it! I just have this vision of myself with my skirts up over my head, trying to tie the dumb waistband string… Any suggestions greatly appreciated!!

So glad you’ve found it fun and helpful!
I’d recommend a drawstring on the hoop skirt rather than elastic. Make sure the ties come out at the front to make them easier to tie & loosen. And elastic won’t make it any easier to sing in as your waist is below your lungs and diaphragm. Also, be sure to wear a corset with the hoop skirt to protect your lower back and help the skirts hang properly.

Although, you CAN drive in a hoop – throw the bulk of the skirts into the car as you slide in. Or pick them up on the right side so they are angled down from right hip to left foot; sit into the car; push them over your legs over the steering wheel until you can close the door; push skirts toward door and under wheel.
Good luck!

Now, about driving a car while wearing a cage hoop…you can hit yourself in the chin with the front of one or more of the hoops if you work it right. Cute. Hoops can turn a girl into a public hazard. You absolutely must remove the hoops before you even consider driving.

Best thing is to genteel-ly ease yourself out of the hoop before entering the vehicle. With your back to the vehicle, nonchalantly work the waistband of the garment open while you blithely look into the distance. If this works right, the whole hoop assembly will collapse into a circle at your feet. Step wide of the thing. Pick it up, grasp it on two sides, and wrestle it into a small package, tie it with the string you previously used when you left home for this event, then heave the rascal into the back seat.

Take your shoes and stockings off if this makes you feel better. Emit any sighs of comfort that you care to–you’re going home, aren’t you? Heave shoes and socks into the back seat also. Take off your bonnet and box it up and put it some place safe. Now you can see properly in all directions, can’t you? Then start looking for your car keys. You’ll hope you thought ahead, won’t you? Well, sure you did, you put them into your reticule and there they are.

Make a getaway and turn on some heavy music once you’re on the road. Tap those toes against the accelerator and You Go Girl!

I’m wearing a hoop skirt under my custom made Cinderella gown for my prom and I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to sit down, but this video helped me so much! Now I can sit down without it popping over my head. I can’t thank you Enough! Thank you!

I ENJOY WEARING MY HOOP UNDERSKIRT, RECEIVED QUITE A FEW COMPLEMENTS, BUT ALSO ALOT OF STARES, IT IS ALOT COOLER THAN WEARING MULTIPLE PETTICOATES. UNFORTNATELLY, MY DAD CALLED ME SCARLET, HE WAS’NT KIDDING. I HAVE ONE CRITICAL OBSERVATION, TRY GETTING IN TO A CAR, OR GOING THROUGH A NARROW DOORWAY WITH ONE ON.

Prancing about in your undergarments for shame! 😉 J/k I loved the video and greatly appreciate it. I’ve wanted to wear hoops underneath my Elizabethan Garb for years but I’ve always been so terrified of sitting in them. I never knew all it took was a simple lift and sit gently I always assumed there was some sort of strange and complex trickery. I found your video on Pintrest randomly but I do believe you have a new follower. Thank you for posting this.

I fondly remember the scene in the movie “The King & I ” where Missy Anna puts the Siamese women in hooped ball gowns and the women behave in Siamese manner, by kneeling and touching their foreheads to the floor when the King appears. All their hoops pop up & over their heads like peacocks.

Good video! I’ve been practicing on my own, doing what seemed right, but had no way of knowing how it looked from the front or side (or rear) as my mirror is in a tiny closet! I think I got the hang of it now after seeing you demonstrate. 🙂

In this video I’m wearing a cage that actually has no fabric between the hoops. I would think that I’d want to sit down as “normal” as possible and with good movement rather than fumble to grasp a bit of fabric between hoop wires. But that’s just me. Even if you only grab a wire you should not lift the skirt very high.

My hoops weren’t 1850s, but from what I can tell, the differences between an Elizabethan-era farthingale and antebellum hoops is slight at best–particularly the construction and placement of hoops. (Farthingales tended to form a more conical shape while hoops a more bell-like shape, is what I seem to see in the artworks and construction.) I never had problems with sitting in them, but I can tell you this: never, ever, EVER, EVER make one with an elastic waistband! It was the first costume I’d made completely on my own, and I made SEVERAL mistakes–one being to incorporate the corset into the bodice as per the instructions of the pattern. This wouldn’t seem to be a terrible mistake, particularly for a first-time costumer…except that I had a two-hour ride to get to the Faire, and I couldn’t wear the farthingale in the car. At all. But without a separate corset and bodice, I couldn’t remove the bodice to put the farthingale on. So I thought, hey, elastic waistband, it’ll just slide right up under the corset and I’ll be good to go!

Theory correct. Worked perfectly. ….unfortunately, I did not particularly account for the weight of the steel hoops over the course of the day, so in addition to having one boob in each armpit thanks to a mis-measurement I didn’t catch in the bodice…I struggled with my hoops gradually getting closer and closer and closer to the ground…..one ring at a time…

The following year, I had ripped that damned elastic out and put in a drawstring waist, and was wearing a separate corset and bodice, and THEN my only problem was getting my skirt caught on a large splinter in a doorway and having to stand there, blocking traffic, until my friend could figure out where the door frame WAS in my skirt and free me. Fortunately, most of the crowd seemed to feel this was a great photo op. ;-P

I learned this the hard way. As I was at a ladies tea, my back facing the entryway. Several ladies came in but not a word was said. One lady come up to me and whispered in my ear I may want to check the back of my skirts or this wasn’t the place to advertize so much. To my horror, one of the lower hoop wires was caught on the back of the chair and flipped my skirt and petticoats up over the back of the chair. Needless to say, as guests walked in, they were greeted with a nice full moon. Now I make sure I am fully covered in back.

Joyful Mentions

"Because of you and your blog I now have the confidence to sew historical articles. Thanks for sharing and teaching your skills." ~Tricia B.

"I absolutely love your video on how to bustle a skirt... it explains it beautifully." ~Maryruth Monahan

"That is excellent advice about wearing a corset! It’s what I have been advising to fellow costumers and people I teach to make costumes, but it is very well written.... Congratulations on an excellent website, and information, for costumers." ~Lynne Cook

"Thank you for all the panels you were on and for sharing your wonderful talent." ~Cindy Piselli

"Thank you for posting the bustling tutorial. That's always been a handful for me. You make it look so easy." ~Val LaBore

"[The Regency class] was great fun! But more than that, it was informative beyond my expections. Jennifer brought clothing she has sewn for a real 'hands on' learning experience. She gave us good info on proper & period correct fabric choices & sewing techniques. Thank you Jennifer." ~Candy Murrietta

"thanks for the great into on 1860 dresses....very informative.." ~Fran Wilcox